Astronomers have spotted an immensely powerful "zombie star" shooting through the Milky Way at more than 110,000 mph (177,000 km/h). The stellar cannonball, which has a magnetic field capable of ripping humans apart atom by atom, also has a puzzling origin story that could alter our understanding of similar stellar remnants.
The surprising object, dubbed SGR 0501+4516, is a magnetar, a neutron star with a powerful magnetic field. Neutron stars are the remains of dead stars that have collapsed into shriveled husks the size of small planets while retaining as much mass as sunlike stars. This makes neutron stars the densest known cosmic objects, behind the hypothesized singularities of black holes.
